Current gun safes are typically in the form of an upright, rectangular, metal box that includes a rectangular door on the front of the box. The locking mechanisms used with these safes typically include four to five cylindrical metal bolts that slide into corresponding circular cutouts adjacent the safe's door as the door is locked. These openings are often cutouts in unreinforced strips of sheet metal. As demonstrated by the many gun safe “pry test” videos that have been widely distributed on Internet sites, such as www.youtube.com, these locking mechanisms are often easy to defeat using primitive tools such as pry bars and sledge hammers. Accordingly, while such locking mechanisms may be suitable to prevent children and visitors from stealing guns and other valuables from a gun safe, they typically do not offer effective protection from determined criminals.
Also, most standard gun safes have flat rear surfaces. This allows a criminal to knock a standard gun safe onto its rear surface so that the gun safe's door is stably maintained in an elevated horizontal orientation. This provides the criminal with a convenient, stable working platform for prying the safe's door open.
In light of the above, there is a need for gun safes, and other types of safes, that are more secure.